


Rations

by asongstress1422



Series: Fire in the Stars [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Child, F/M, Food, Force Bond, Hope, mother - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 22:42:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13110015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asongstress1422/pseuds/asongstress1422
Summary: Rey sees a hungery child and wants to help. Kylo thinks she's being naive.





	Rations

**Author's Note:**

> So I watched the Last Jedia and I came out rooting for these two. I've been spiraling down the fandom hole ever since.

“But, mommy, I’m still hungry.”

Rey looks over her shoulder from where she’s standing in the ration line. It is late, several clicks after on world sun down. She sees a young harried mother trying to console her two year old child.

“I know, honey. Mommy’s sorry. But we have to wait for tomorrows rations.”

The little face pinches up, eyes flooding with tears.

“Oh, baby.” The mother pulls the child into her arms hugging it tightly as it sniffles pitifully into her shoulder. She rubs its back soothingly. “Come on, lets go lie down for a while together before mommy’s shift. Would you like that?”

The blond head nods.

“Okay, baby, lets go.” Thin arms scoop up the child. For a moment Rey doesn't think the woman will have the strength to rise to her feet but she does, bearing her and her child away where they can hole up and pretend everything is okay for a minute longer.

“Force-user.”

Rey turns forward, the bulbous humanoid slapping the standard two ration packets in her hand. She nods her thanks stepping out of line for the next person.

She quickly slips out of the cantina ignoring the tightness in her gut.

‘ _What are you doing_ ,’ the voice in her head growls.

Her steps falter at the abruptness of him just being there. She shakes her head, subconsciously hoping that would dislodge him from her mind.

‘ _That hasn’t worked before. I thought you’d be smarter then trying the same failing methods again.’_

“Get out of here, Kylo,” she hisses under her breath looking down the length of both deserted hallways. Where did those two go? “I don’t have time for you today.”

The main sleeping quarters are to the right but something tells her to go left, so she does.

‘ _Please don’t tell me you are going to give those rebel leaches your rations.’_

She ignores him trying not to bring the layout of the base to mind just in case he is able to catch it and track them by it but fearing she’d be hopelessly lost with out it or, worse, loss the woman’s trail.

‘ _No. I forbid it.’ S_ he felt more then saw him create a force barrier in her path as she stumbles face first into it knocking her to the ground.

She looks up from clutching her face to see him lording in her way, arms clasped behind his back, black regalia and all.

She regains her feet with a snarl. “Get out of my way.”

‘ _No. I will not allow you starve yourself for that resistance trash.”_

She launches herself at him in a berage of punches and kicks. Surprised as he was at the out of nowhere attack he quickly engage and subdues her, arms locked behind her back as he presses her into the metal wall.

“Get off me!” She tries to shake him off. He does not even budge.

‘ _Not until you swear_ \--’

She roars, using her force in a push like motion to toss him away. He slams into the opposite wall with a grunt as she turned to face him. Her vision swims at the quick moment after the energy drain and she braces herself against the side of the hallway.

He glares at her, holding a hand to his side and panting. ‘ _What does giving them your rations accomplish?’_

She lays her head against the cool metal trying to shove the dizzy spell away. “Have you ever been so hunger you don’t want to go to sleep because your afraid you wont wake up? Where the _memory_ of food is painful? When you contemplate selling yourself for a quarter ration just to survive the day?”

 _‘The child just ate,"_  he spits. ' _You have not.’_

She shrugs, pushing away from the wall, already knowing she has shown too much weakness in front of him.

_‘What happens the next time you hear a sob story? Are you going to put yourself back into the position you clawed your way out of?’_

"I can survive it.”

‘L _ittle fool. You give them nothing but false hope.’_

 _“Y_ ou think I don’t know that? That that child’s chances of see its next star-cycle as slim? That the mother’s chances are cut in half after having given birth? All any of us have is false hope but as least it’s something to keep us clinging to this cesspit called life.”

‘ _Like believing ones parents are coming back,’_ he sneers maliciously.

His words are carefully crafted daggers that find their mark and shred her heart. She swallows against the pain, refusing to let him see how he hurt her even as she meets his gaze squarely. “Even knowing they never are.”

Guilt fills his eyes, he knows he has gone too far. She glares at him, daring him to voice is pity. He remains silent.

With a final look she pushes from the wall and continues down the hall ignoring as his shadow presence follows.

Whatever trail she had been hoping to follow has gone cold. The mother and child had disappeared into the labyrinth that is the Resistance outpost. She freezes in indecision at a branching hallway.

‘ _You tried.'_  His voice bemoans from behind her. _'Isn’t that enough?’_

She ignores him taking the right branch. Another fork, she stays straight.

‘ _Are you lost or is it your plan to walk me through the this whole base?’_

She doesn’t answer. Left. Left again. Down a ladder. Right.

She pauses, the little feeling in her chest going silent. A door. She lays her hand on it, a flash of the mother and child in her mind. She has found them.

Reaching in her pocket she takes out the ration bars. Setting them distinctly in the middle of the floor where they can’t be missed. She knocks. Pausing a second then knocks again, just so she can’t be ignored, before sprinting down the dark hall and tucking herself around the corner.

‘ _What are you-’_

 _“_ Shh,” she hisses as the door opens and the woman’s head peaks out. _Look down,_ she whispers to her in her mind.

‘ _It’s not as if she can hear me,’_ he muttered indignantly, peeking around his bond-mates shoulder. He watches as the woman kneels and picks up the bars. She glances down the hall both ways, her face full of shock at her good fortune. She cradles the rations to her chest and steps back inside.  

‘ _You don’t want the recognition?’_ he questions, surprised.

Rey shakes her head stepping out of hiding, brushing off the dust that has transferred to her clothes from the ancient pipes.

She slips silently down the hall, taking the twists and turns back to her own room in a much better section of the base, where all the lights work and the walls are still mostly white and clean.

Kylo is silent the whole way back and stands to the side of the door as she gets ready for bed. She drinks two whole glasses of water to quiet the squeaking of her stomach and slips under the blankets tugging them up to around her chin. She then just lays on her side and stares at him in the light coming in from under the bottom of the door.

She doesn’t know what prompts her, maybe the ticking of her mental clock that says he has done nothing but stand there for fifteen minutes, but she reaches her hand out to him. “Ben?”

Like a drowning man coming back up for air he takes her hand and allows her to draw him into her bed where they lay face to face. Her pressed as far against the wall as she can and him almost falling off the other side but their hands intertwined.

He lies there eyes searching her face in the dim light, memorizing it, searching for answers to questions neither one of them are ready to voice. He swallows, hesitates, then asks, ‘ _Do you think I’m a bad person because I’ve never known hunger?’_

“No.” She meets his eyes, letting him see the truth there before closing them against anymore questions tonight. She brushes her chin against his knuckles. “It makes me happy.”

His body relaxes, the tension easing from him as he sighs. His nose nuzzles her hair and their breath mingles as they fall asleep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think ;p


End file.
